Several video game outlets have gone hands-on with LEGO Horizon Adventures at Summer Game Fest, so here are 10 things we’ve learned from their early gameplay reactions.
Arriving on PS5, PC and Nintendo Switch later this year, LEGO Horizon Adventures is the brainchild of the LEGO Group, Guerrilla Games and Studio Gobo, who have all partnered to turn the adventures of PlayStation icon Aloy into what looks like one of the most visually ambitious LEGO video games to date.
That much was obvious from the initial trailer alone, but it turns out there’s actually a lot more going on beneath the shiny surface. Early reactions to the game are now emerging off the back of hands-on demos at Summer Game Fest in Los Angeles, from outlets including Eurogamer, IGN, Kotaku, PlayStation Access and Digital Trends.
From the game’s expected length to the way it’s approaching Horizon’s combat systems, here are the key takeaways from their on-the-ground reports…
10 – The foundations of the franchise were built with LEGO
Here’s a fun titbit to kick off with: did you know that Guerrilla Games originally prototyped Horizon Zero Dawn’s metal machines with DUPLO bricks? It’s an anecdote the studio’s narrative director James Windeler shared with several journalists at Summer Game Fest, clearly keen to talk up the shared history between Horizon and LEGO. But it’s also not the first time we’ve heard examples of LEGO being used in game development: Hideo Kojima famously used bricks to design early levels for Metal Gear Solid.
9 – The LEGO Tallneck inspired the video game
While Guerrilla Games may have been putting together its Thunderjaws, Watchers and Shell-Walkers in DUPLO bricks, the genesis of LEGO Horizon Adventures actually emerged from the studio’s partnership with the LEGO Group for 76989 Horizon Forbidden West: Tallneck. The concept came together ‘around the same time’ that 2022 set was in development.
“We think it’s actually an obvious pairing in a lot of ways,” Windeler told Digital Trends. “A lot of the devs have grown up over the last 10 years making Horizon games. But in that time, they’ve had kids, and they want to make a game that they can play with their own children.”
8 – The entire world is made of LEGO – and it’s buildable
LEGO Horizon Adventures goes one step beyond TT Games’ library of LEGO video games by adopting the same approach to its world as The LEGO Movie: absolutely everything is built from physical bricks, from the characters and machines to the environment. The result is a world that feels much more authentic to the spirit of LEGO – not least because Billund’s brightest apparently had a hand in making it happen.
“It's designed by master builders,” Windeler told IGN. “All of these things, from the coolest elements of Horizon, the majestic nature, the machines, the characters, they're all following the rules of physical LEGO. So even though they're made as digital assets, you could build them technically out of physical sets.
“It also extends to the animation style and the way that the characters move in the game. There's this kind of stop-motion of all of the characters. Yeah, it's like a toy. ‘Toyetic’ was a word that was thrown around a lot as a target, and it's the idea that you're playing potentially with your own figurines.”
What this means in practice is that the LEGO Group has already cooked up a huge bank of buildable Horizon machines. LEGO Thunderjaw set when?
7 – It’s one of the best-looking games… ever?
One common thread binding together all these early previews is just how good LEGO Horizon Adventures looks. IGN’s Rebekah Valentine says that ‘LEGO in video game form has never looked so gorgeous’, while PlayStation Access’s Rob Pearson proclaims it’s ‘one of the best-looking games I’ve ever seen’.
“It’s a bold claim and obviously it’s a very distinct and unique look,” Pearson says. “It’s a LEGO look. But when you go inside the customisation menus and you get to do a close-up look at the character models and you get to see little nicks and scratches on the LEGO models, exactly like your LEGO toys in real life, it’s like you’re looking at a real LEGO figurine in front of you. What they’ve managed to achieve with the lighting is just amazing, and when you actually see it in motion, it’s unbelievably good-looking.”
Valentine points to several examples of stunning attention to detail from the devs, meanwhile, including Aloy kicking up footprints of LEGO dust as she potters around the environment, sunlight glittering off brick-built water and LEGO grass that bursts into translucent flame elements when you hit it with a fire arrow. Check out the video above to see the game in action for yourself.
6 – The main game is roughly eight hours long
LEGO Horizon Adventures isn’t a straight retelling of 2017’s Horizon Zero Dawn. Instead, it’s ‘loosely inspired’ by the events of the franchise’s first game, reworked to suit a family-friendly audience. But it’s not going to be a flash-in-the-pan experience, either: the game’s main campaign ‘runs about eight hours’, reports Kotaku, while post-story content and unlockables will offer further longevity.
That’s still much shorter than Horizon Zero Dawn, the story for which takes around 22 hours to complete. But with one eye on the younger target audience for this title, a shorter experience makes sense. The intention is apparently that it’s meant to be ‘digestible for everyone’ – and not just hours of inside jokes for current franchise fans.
“There's tons of nods, and I mentioned iconic scenes that we've reinterpreted that will be recognisable and hopefully joyful to a fan of the series, but at the same time, we want people to come in who have no Horizon knowledge,” Windeler told IGN.
5 – It’s imbued with classic LEGO humour
Perhaps the most significant binding trait of LEGO games and movies is their sense of humour, and that’s definitely not lost in LEGO Horizon Adventures. Pretty much every preview talks up the game’s narrative and visual gags, from Rost handing Aloy a big bag of Focuses (lampooning her quest to find the rare tech in the game’s original intro) to Aloy chastising Rost for beating up a training dummy she’s dutifully nicknamed ‘Fred’.
4 – The voice cast from the original games is back
Helping bring that humour to the screen is most of the original cast of Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West, including Ashly Burch as Aloy and JB Blanc as Rost. You might not recognise them straight away, though: these are much goofier and light-hearted takes on their characters, which apparently works well given they didn’t necessarily take themselves too seriously in the original games.
Guerrilla Games has also confirmed to multiple outlets that Sylens will make an appearance in LEGO Horizon Adventures, and has been recast following the death of original voice actor Lance Reddick in 2023. The studio hasn’t shared details on who will be taking up the mantle, however.
3 – Two familiar systems return from TT’s LEGO games
While TT Games has nothing to do with LEGO Horizon Adventures, the DNA of the studio’s LEGO games can be felt in two very distinct ways. The first is the presence of studs as currency, a concept that’s long since transcended LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game and is key once again to unlocking outfits for the characters in LEGO Horizon Adventures.
The second is the title’s emphasis on drop-in, drop-out co-op gameplay, which feels core to the family-friendly approach that’s worked so well for TT Games for the past two decades. Kotaku reports that the two players will ‘share the same game space’, so it sounds like the dynamic split-screen of some TT Games titles won’t be making its way here.
2 – Combat is a simplified take on Horizon’s robo-play
Making LEGO Horizon Adventures approachable and digestible by gamers of all ages has meant stripping back the franchise’s gameplay to its roots, then building on it in brand new ways. In the original games, Aloy uses a variety of weapons and tools to strip parts off the giant machines wandering her post-apocalyptic environment, with relatively complex combat systems that are simple to understand but tricky to master.
Guerrilla Games and Studio Gobo have boiled that approach down to a more simplistic one-button approach for LEGO Horizon Adventures. You can still use Aloy’s Focus to identify weak points, or bricks, on the various machines, then target those for extra damage. But pretty much everything happens with her bow, with the exception of power-ups that range from practical to silly: one moment she’s setting things on fire, the next she’s building a hot dog stand that can take down enemies.
1 – The game was developed for Switch simultaneously
Given Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West are first-party games for Sony and PlayStation, it came as a surprise when Guerrilla Games announced LEGO Horizon Adventures is coming to Nintendo Switch. But this isn’t a half-baked port: the game was apparently developed for the Switch and PS5 concurrently, with the studio leaning into the out-of-the-box co-op gameplay offered by Nintendo’s detachable controllers.
“The Switch was kind of perfect for that,” Windeler told Eurogamer. “The control scheme is simple, it's designed to be played on a Nintendo Joy-Con, and of course they have a very family-friendly audience, so it's just a really good fit.”
LEGO Horizon Adventures arrives on PS5, PC and Nintendo Switch in 2024. A firm release date has yet to be confirmed.
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